Safe behavior urged at 17th AIDS Walk

PORTSMOUTH — Richard Wagner, the executive director of AIDS Response-Seacoast, worries that too many people may have forgotten about AIDS and the dangers it poses, even as treatments have improved drastically.

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By Jeff McMenemy

seacoastonline.com

By Jeff McMenemy

Posted May. 6, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By Jeff McMenemy
Posted May. 6, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

PORTSMOUTH — Richard Wagner, the executive director of AIDS Response-Seacoast, worries that too many people may have forgotten about AIDS and the dangers it poses, even as treatments have improved drastically.

"Once you get it, there's a way to control it, but there's no cure, you'll always have it," Wagner said Sunday before the 17th annual Seacoast AIDS Walk. "We're always preaching that to people."

Still, the improved treatment and the way researchers have combined four pills into one, makes living with AIDS easier than it was 20 years ago, he acknowledged.

"If someone were diagnosed today as HIV positive, and they were tested early, the chances of them living a fairly normal life are pretty good," he said.

But the improved treatments and the media's greater focuses on other diseases have taken the focus away from HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS, leading some groups of people to return to the risky behavior of the past.

"There seems to be a lot of apathy, even among the gay community, which was always so active and so helpful," Wagner said. "People aren't showing up for the walks like they used to, whether it's because of burnout or because they don't think it's the risk it used to be."

Nationally, Wagner said, the number of HIV cases among young gay men and African-American men is growing.

"Eighteen-year-olds don't think about the consequences of what they're doing a lot of the time," Wagner said.

Plus, groups like AIDS Response-Seacoast simply cannot raise money to help people with HIV or AIDS like they used to.

"People aren't donating the way they used to," Wagner said. "The economy is a huge factor in what happened in 2008, when everything went to hell in a hand basket. It affected every nonprofit organization that I know of."

That's why the 17th annual Seacoast AIDS Walk, which started at City Hall on Sunday and wandered through the downtown, is so important, he said.

Clad in a bright yellow T-shirt, Olivia LeRoux, a senior at York High School in York, Maine, said she got involved with the school's AIDS Education initiative because her uncle's twin died from the disease.

"It's important that people know about it and know how to prevent it," LeRoux said as she and about 50 other walkers gathered in the lower parking lot at City Hall. "We try to participate in events like this and help out as much as we can."

LeRoux said many of her fellow high school students are surprised and frightened when they hear how easy it is to contract HIV.

"They get scared," she said. "A lot of people don't know how they can get it and a lot of younger people are having sex and they're not protecting themselves."

Richard Leigh of York, Maine, the president of the board of directors for AIDS Response-Seacoast, said he was diagnosed with HIV about 22 years ago, but because of the drastic improvements in the way they disease is treated, he's been able to remain healthy.

Plus, he has health insurance.

"It can cost $5,000 to $10,000 every two months, roughly, if you don't have insurance," Leigh, 54, said about the price people have to pay for the medication. "I'd be dead if I didn't have insurance because I would have to work three jobs to try to pay for the drugs I get now through my health insurance."

But he, too, is concerned about the uptick of cases involving young gay men.

"The latest (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) said the number of new cases nationally is expected to reach 55,000," he said. "It's people going back to risky behavior."

Barbara Kautz, a retired nurse from York, said that, remarkably, a lot of younger people seem unaware of the risks of getting HIV.

Asked how that could be, given all the education and attention focused on HIV, Kautz said, "I don't know, but it's really scary. It seems the message has to be constant about the dangers."

The HIV virus is spread through infectious body fluids, such as blood and semen, in large part by having sex without using condoms, according to AIDS Response-Seacoast, and the sharing of infected needles for drug use.